How have calypsonians and calypso contributed to nationhood and established a pathway for the realisation of people who can interact with the international community with something in hand to contribute to world civilisation?
It’s a question I am asking myself in this Calypso History Month, hoping to approach an answer through an exploration of the calypso journey.
In the early 1930s, while the likes of Cipriani, James, and others were articulating and mobilising for a form of political self-government, the likes of Lion and Atilla, backed by businessman Sa Gomes, travelled to New York self-assured that their music had recording value.
At home, the Growling Tiger (Neville Marcano) castigated the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, for his assault on Ethiopia. With insight and passion, the bard from the “Bush” in “Siparee” in his thick Patois accent put into context the assault and the vicious and greedy “Scramble for Africa” engaged by the brutal European colonists.
They carved up the continent and shared out the natural resources amongst themselves—a phenomenon that continues in different forms in the present.
Tiger interpreted it all in “The Gold in Africa ... Mussolini want from the Emperor ... ah shameless dog for a dictator, he want to enslave King Selassie ...”
Enterprise and entrepreneurship by Railway Douglas were displayed when he established the commercial calypso tent in the 1920s (Dr Rudolph Ottley).
What Douglas did was to set down a pattern that was followed decades later by the likes of Syl Taylor, Jazzy Pantin, Kitchener and Sparrow, Blakie, Munro, Shadow, and Cro Cro.
The venture showed the calypsonian a way forward from the drink-a-rum for performance culture. Tiger also dug deep into society to unveil what continues to be a major social problem: inequity in the distribution of resources and a lack of consideration for humanity: “If you are poor, ah dog is better than you.”
Lord Kitchener spread the art form within the Caribbean, British Guiana, and Jamaica and then made the big leap in the belief that calypso had value in the then-sophisticated capital of the world, London. He, along with Lord Beginner and the Mighty Terror in their different ways and times, made the natural move to the “Mother Country”—the heartbeat of the colonial empire, Britain, where the products of their ancestors had been taken to sweeten the palates of the Europeans.
“London is the place to be ... repeat ...” Kitchener announced to a reporter and the world and claimed his right to be there. Calypso then was among the early human exports of talent from T&T, Constantine, James, and Winnifred having preceded them; the stream opened in the 1950s with writers and students.
As immigrants attempting to gain relevance and earn their keep in this advanced metropolitan city, Kitch and Beginner had the effrontery and perspicacity to make relevant their art to capture and give insight into two well-established British cultural habits: electoral politics and cricket.
Beginner on the elections of 1950, and he and Kitchener on cricket. Assured of themselves and the importance of the West Indian victory over England at Lord’s, the two, guitar in hand, and a band of West Indian immigrants struggling to make a living in big city London danced onto the ground in merriment on this historic occasion.
It was the forerunner to the West Indian brand of cricket, even the CPL. “Those two little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine,” was the celebratory song Beginner (Egbert Moore) later recorded.
Consider the importance and audacity of such a celebration at the citadel of English cricket and British high culture: two immigrant peddlers of strange music having the audacity to lead a swarm of their peers from the colonies to dance triumphantly with their musical creation unto the field at Lord’s.
The celebration was a recognition of those who had paved the way, Headley and Constantine, and to celebrate the Three Ws, Ram and Val, and to project the coming of Sobers, Lloyd, Richards, Roberts, Holding, Ambrose, Lara, and the generations that followed.
Kitchener also took a dive into race relations, calling out the sense of psychological and social disturbance in the psyche created, as the bard interpreted it, in the minds of the children of the daring black and white of the society: “If you’re not white, you considered black.”
Kitchener followed Tiger in looking to the African continent, in this instance to mark the beginning of the process of decolonisation (which had been initiated by Jawarhalal Nehru in India) with Ghana’s political independence from Britain.
At home, a young upstart calypsonian with plenty of bravado danced and sang his way onto the stage with daring and panache to interpret the social impact left by the American military occupation of Chaguaramas and the intrusion into social life.
In summary, calypsonians displayed self-belief, not a trait taught by colonialism, in the 1930s, they involved themselves in international affairs and were very much part of the move to self-government; in business entrepreneurship, they were confident and celebratory of West Indian cricketing triumph and the importance of it and believed that the art form created by their ancestors had international entertainment value.
I shall continue.
Tony Rakhal-Fraser is a freelance journalist, former reporter/current affairs programme host and News Director at TTT, programme producer/current affairs director at Radio Trinidad, correspondent for the BBC Caribbean Service and the Associated Press, and graduate of UWI, CARIMAC, Mona, and St Augustine Institute of International Relations.